liz lopez
Reading the Land
A field at Abó is seen through a window of the ruins of the mission baptistery.
Cultural landscape studies at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument are revealing the complexities of past land use and settlement. By Tamara Stewart
H
e strides purposefully across the desert hillside, beyond the massive sandstone mission church ruins and surrounding rubble mounds to point out blooming currants, a sea of sand plum trees, white buds deep as drifts of snow, blooming wolfberry, algerita, cholla, and other native fruit-bearing plants.
american archaeology
“This whole valley is a big seep spring, the water is just a couple feet below the surface, and look how lush!” exclaims Baker Morrow as he points out features and vegetation patterns at the Quarai unit of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in central New Mexico. Morrow, a principal with Morrow Reardon Wilkinson Miller, Ltd. (MRWM) Landscape
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